The European Studies Centre at St Anthony’s College Oxford held a seminar on 2 May 2023 with the above title. The main speaker was Anna Grzymala-Busse (Stanford University). There were also discussants with Polish antecedents.
From 1956, the Church gained concessions from, and dialogue with, the communist government. (Perhaps, in reaction to the anti-Soviet rising in Hungary, this was a measure to suppress ‘inflammation’.) It got building permits and paper quotas (for printing). Myths surrounding a ‘Black Madonna’ image helped; between 1957 and 1980 this was taken round every parish in the country.
The story was somewhat overshadowed by the election in 1978 of Cardinal Wojtyla as Pope John Paul II, serving until his death in 2005. He had attended the Second Vatican Council of 1962 and supported its outcome – at risk of death threats and indeed attempts. After a papal Mass in 1983 the Solidarnosc union’s slogans were displayed. He was anti-capitalist but pro the EU.
The Church emerged in 1990 free from threats to its survival and in fact wealthy and a landowner, with state funding. Thus there was a continued presumption of a Catholic Poland. This was supported partly by historical myths and invented histories. Poland needed these, as did Ireland, rather than (say) Hungary. The Church had moral authority and was non-partisan so could more readily represent the nation. It was free to promote religious education. Its condemnation of, for example, abortion was somewhat soft-footed for fear that this issue might be put to a referendum. It supported EU membership in the 2004 referendum. It had the power to vet official appointments.
The Polish Catholic Church had now (30 years on) become rather less secure. Child sexual abuse scandals were coming to light. Mass attendances were falling, especially of the young who had grown up in a democratic (non-communist) Poland. So were vocations for the priesthood. There was growing public support for LGBT and gender issues, with protests in churches. The Church was supporting the state in social provision, but not commensurately with its wealth. Quebec was mentioned as a comparator. A hypocritical element was visible in Poland, in that an influential person could always arrange an abortion.
Other Christian and non-Christian faiths were becoming more visible because of immigration, particularly from Ukraine, but also from Protestant Germany. But the Polish Catholics were not investing in the evangelical or ‘happy clappy’ approaches which were keeping some of the potential flock within the UK churches.
Richard Seebohm 12/5/23
